Why is iMessage combining two contacts into one thread. I can only text back the last one that messaged me. This started with iOS 12

I have two devices with my daughter. The only common account is our iTunes login so that she can make purchases for music etc that we both have access to. She has her own ID for messages and face time. We have not had a message sharing issue. Should we expect one to creep up? The only thing we share is the iTunes portion.

Forbes had an article about this how shared Apple ID is the problem, my wife and daughter are both getting my messages and it’s not been embarrassing yet but this is ridiculous. When you send a message to a number/person it should go to that number Apple ID should have nothing to do with this.

I used to participate in iOS beta software but got tired of repeated message/SMS/iMessage related issues. iOS 12 is not a beta Apple you are better than this!

rockmyplimsoul wrote:

On the server side, Apple ID is used for iMessage, not your phone number.

Thanks for that comment. I didn't know that. Why do you think it worked before the update to IOS 12? It seemed to work for people before.

Possible workaround and/or solution.

Remove or change emails in notification section of your Apple ID account, so they don’t match another Apple ID.

I find it ridiculous there including the notification email as part of your iCloud iMessage account now. They should only look at the reachable at.

Look for apple ids of alternate emails in your contacts that are having the issue.

Check every email in the contacts with the issues on the Apple ID page to see if they also have an Apple ID.

Remove other non used emails in the contacts having the issue.

You might have to delete the merges thread in order to fix the issue. Not sure I want you lose years of memories by deleting the thread.

Rant and my issue.

Why this upsets me, is apple snuck this in in beta 8.

So they made a change to iMessage without telling anyone and sneaking in 1 to 2 weeks before going live. This is just a bad idea with no time for testing.

So this is happening to me and several of my accounts including my parents which are on a separate Apple ID.

My parents shared an Apple ID, I separated their phones into their own Apple ID it didn’t help. See fixes above.

On the phone with Apple tonight we discovered that my mother had an additional Apple ID created she didn’t use it but the email address was linked to her contact and the security Notification email was linked to another other Apple ID.

See fix above.

My family all six of us share one Apple ID and until I was 12 and it worked perfectly fine.

Now in order to fix my family I have to go on 12 devices and spend several hours changing and setting up Apple IDs that I’m giving to children under 12. Yes they have family sharing but this is been set up for years even before family sharing.

It’s extremely frustrating to not be able to message family members you’ve messages for years.

And guys it’s getting old age everyone should have their own Apple ID, well you know what it’s worked fine since iMessage was launched by simply checking or I’m checking email address it worked perfectly fine till this little change that was poorly implemented and poorly coaded st the last minute.

I have now lost years of messages from my father, actually years of memories from my father and the only way to fix it is to remove all the memories from my mother as well. I’m not ready to do that.

I hope some of the suggestions can fix this issue for some users.

Apple needs to fix this. They made a change at the last minute without proper testing it comes down to their fault

It’s not the fix for everybody, there are deeper issues see my post at the very end.

Email address is in contacts tiied other Apple ID being tied to notification emails and that Apple ID and other Apple IDs it’s a real mess

Yes cleaning up contacts can really help. It can point you to people that have multiple Apple IDs with the same person’s name or contacts that have emails but I know longer used or that are used in the same Apple ID.

Hi

After making this change for any device, have you done the following to any one device:

- check the Messages history to see separate conversations across your family

- power down your device

- power up your device

- Recheck your messages history and see if those histories got combined within your family

Let those of us following here know what you see

This happened when I upgraded to 12 on my iphone7 AND my husband and son got new XS. At first i thought it was because we were sharing an apple id so I put everyone on family share, deleted my son's contact and reentered it etc. Nothing fixed it permanently...fixes when each of them texts me separately but inevitably merges my son onto my husband's text. Going a bit crazy trying to fix it with all the log in hoops you have to jump through now.

This better get fixed and fast! It is frustrating but glad to see i am not the only one.

This screwed my family up, spend 12 hours with multiple apple support telling me it's my fault for having shared an apple ID and it's imposible to fix.

Had a friend send an inappropriate joke pic wich went to my 13 year old daughter. another friend was making a joke about his and my wife and it went to my wife directly even though he sent it to me.

I spend about 20 hours having to create new ID's and split out into family and move everyones stuff... now the texts are mostly working but it still happens occasionally and we've lost the ability to share things because "Family Share" is not ready for prime time.. no way to automatically share photos, no way to share notes, sharing location through find my iphone has to be manually turned on via messages, yet my child can just turn it off, and I can't share storage, so I had to PAY more for 200GB plan

This is an epic disaster and a serious issue... I'm most ****** about the inappropriate pic going to my daughter, and the fact that I'm taking care of my father on Hospice and had to rebuild 7 family devices remotely. I know this is apples HARD-FORCE to get everyone off of a shared ID so they can charge more money...

iMessage messed up everything! It keeps detect my iPhone X phone number as my SE phone number which in this case using same Apple ID, and I couldn't activate the iMessage on this iphone X, keeps prompting failed to activate iMessage

Thomas Gradwell wrote:

Philly_Phan,

I would love you to point out Apple's specific instructions on use of an Apple ID. First of all, I started sharing an Apple ID well before Family Sharing came out. Saying this is a user's issue is asinine. Family Sharing has many drawbacks over just sharing and Apple ID, especially for families with younger users. I have total control over purchases and I can use Find My iPhone for location tracking. It has helped me locate a lost phone in more than one instance. Also, it seems like the issue is more deep than just moving to Family Sharing because people are experiencing the issue with separate Apple ID's, which you refuse to acknowledge. Please stop your criticism of these users, when they had no issues until the update to iOS 12 and Apple's flawed implementation of unified threads.

I follow Apple's instructions. My iPhone works perfectly. Does yours?

This problem is worst I've ever seen Apple make.. they should actually turn off iMessage until they can resolve this.

So everyone is clear - the thread is misleading - it's not merging messages, it's randomly sending them to other people. When person A intends to send to person B, it never goes to person B, it goes to Person C who isn't expecting it. Person A will never be able to send a message to person B, it's impossible. iMessage has now decided that Person A is only allowed to communicate with person C who has entirely different phone number and apple ID.

so iMessages, pictures, videos, etc... are going to people you don't intend them to go to, and worse, as the intended recipient, you have no idea someone got a message delivered to someone else.

Thanks for the reply Kring.

to further clarify, it is merging messages for me. I communicate with two people who do share an Apple ID and have shared for years. On my phone it is merging them into one thread because it thinks they are the same person. I have checked with them and they are both set to "send and receive" imessage from their phone numbers only. It seems the issue will present itself differently for people who share apple id's and for people who just message them.

Just to clarify, this thread was actually originally about merging messages, exactly what the original poster stated, because that is a problem that a lot of us are having - literally taking two contacts and merging them into one text messaging thread akin to a group message, but it isn't, and you can only text the person who last messaged you within that (forced) merged thread. I think this conversation has just subsequently morphed into a lot of other issues people are having since the update (including the one you mentioned, with randomly misdirected messages.) I also had an issue since the update where my iMessages were only going to my iPad for a couple days (I had turned iMessage off on my phone in a feeble attempt to correct the problem, and instead of sending things as a text message, it just didn't send them to my phone at all.) Suffice it to say, I think the issues Apple created with this latest iOS update are much broader than the one the OP brought up.

I know this is more than just an minor, isolated issue, as my sister and brother in law have both received urgent messages from their respective companies (2 different, large medical supply companies) to not under any circumstances update to the new operating system due to the obvious nightmare of mixed and dropped threads while dealing with sales and service